Naturally, I'm thinking about dinner, Dinner from @Alon's yesterday. Alon's isn't so crowded at dinner, but the eclairs are usually sold out ... sob .... We got Caesar no chicken SOS ( sauce on the side), roast beef sandwich, fingerling potato salad. Split between the priestess and me it's a highfalutin meal at our empty nest.

From the parking lot , before I went in, without even getting out of the car I took these:

Sunday, September 26, 2010

I'm an architecture optimist: Neither great architecture nor great design should require millions or mansions.

When this bungalow with a Greek temple for a front porch burned last fall, we nearly lost a great small house in a modest neighborhood. They are rebuilding. It will be the best of modern living. But we lost the porch's entablature, the Parthenon porch.

I can't find anything about the history of this house. All I know is that it was "neck-snapping good."

The original house had 12 foot ceilings. With rare exceptions nobody would rebuild a 12 foot ceiling. So they are doing 10 foot ceilings. It's huge cost savings, much cheaper to heat and cool, and provides livable space upstairs where there was none before.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

I hope you can do this walk yourself. Call me if you want company. I don't get tired of it.

While the architecture tourist commandress in chief "took" a meeting downtown today, I walked the 4 Peachtree Center Atria by John Portman & Associates. Opinions are divided on Mr. Portman and Peachtree Center but Mr. Portman is one Atlanta's most consequential men. At nearly 2 million square feet, Peachtree Center has been the name of the game in downtown Atlanta for 50 years.

I started with Portman's first hotel, the Hyatt Regency (1967). Is it old hat now? Not to me. The first of it's kind, a jaw-dropping trendsetter, it put Atlanta on the architectural map. Atrium hotels are commonplace today but the "Regency" holds its own. It's MY atrium hotel.

Next, Portman's tallest hotel (at the time) The Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, (1976). I watched them build it. I never thought it beautiful but always thought it huge. You enter the brutailst facade from Peachtree and make your way through a cozy tunnel-like hall to the lobby. My sensation is that I am directly under a 73 story skyscraper and I mean under it. Ride the escalators from top to bottom. Here it is after the downtown tornado.

The Marriot Marquis (1985) atrium is 515 feet of the strangest big space in Atlanta. It's also the very best party room, THE place to be for Dragon Con.

The Sun Trust Plaza (1993) is the tallest building in Peachtree Center. Unless you work there or eat at Mortons I can't think of a single reason that you might have visited. Let me give you a reason: the atrium. The squarish footprint of the skyscraper hovers over the round, light filled lobby, a square in a circle.

In the center, the impossibly arched elevator lobby.

Watch this High Museum video to see how Peachtree Center came together.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Howard Street starts here. You should find something you like on Howard Street.

Believe me. Kirkwood isn't on the way to anywhere that folks go these days unless you live nearby. It's a shame. One of string of neighborhoods north and south of the railroad between Atlanta and Decatur, it used to be independent city, one of the areas first streetcar suburbs. It's been around the block a few times.

"By 1910 streetcars provided express service to and from Atlanta three times daily, and street cars continued service along some streets including Kirkwood Road until the early 1950’s. " - Kirkwood Neighbors' Organization

Unless you are really trying, you'll never see wonderful Howard Street. Here is what you do. From Decatur, or Agnes Scott, from the East Lake Marta Station, wherever, head west on College Avenue until you see this beautiful building. That's Howard Street, turn left.

Let's ride.

This was until recently a funeral home. Perhaps a mansion before. You have to see this in person.